How to Skyrocket Social Media Marketing Through Visual Designs

You might have wanted to promote your ambitious startup, so you read up on emerging marketing trends and here’s what you came across on virtually every marketing blog.

“There are 2.3 billion active social media users.”

“Internet users have an average of 5.54 social media accounts.”

“Visual Content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on the social media than other types.” (Source: HubSpot)

This prompted you to:

1. 1. Market through social media
2. 2. Use multiple platforms of social media.
3. 3. Create stunning visuals for marketing.

But your ads weren’t creating enough traction with the online audience. Not enough views. Not enough likes. Not enough shares. Why wasn’t social media working its magic?

You might be trying to emulate iconic brands. However, there are factors that you didn’t consider:

1. 1. On social media, you’re competing with funny memes, cat videos, GIFs, and popular celebrities’ daily activities.
2. 2. Your audience most likely belongs to a younger demographic (except for Facebook).
3. 3. Your Ads look like Ads! Nobody wants to look at Ads on social media….or anywhere on the internet actually.

So, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to skyrocket your social media campaign.

Let’s start with a how-to on creating the right images.

1. 1. Creativity is crucial

I would zoom past the ad on the left (unless I was fasting); a generic TV-like ad that you’d find nearly everywhere. However, on the right, we have an ad:

• • Infused with rich humour
• • With relevant imagery in the background
• • A branding hashtag that can propagate

That’s how you engage with an audience on social media. Don’t blatantly and directly show your brand. Instead, focus on creating an impact on the audience through your brand using captivating visuals.

1. 2. Be Careful about Colors (Duh!)

The first step to any Visual Ad campaign would be the colour scheme you chose for your brand. You might have already read countless articles regarding colour psychology already, but here’s a visual to give you the basic rundown

• • Incorporate them in your visuals. This helps relate your posts to your brand.
• • Use colours that contrast well with the background of the social media site. Don’t blend in with the background. Stand out!
• • Border your image so it doesn’t feel like it’s floating on their Wall or News Feed.
• • Use different shades of your colour scheme if you want variety.
• •
• 3. Simple is the new elegant

There’s a cornucopia of exciting, vibrant visuals to choose from, so you might be tempted to stuff them all in one image. Don’t. The ad on the left is filled to the brim with images and text while the ad on the right is centred around one toy which is the focal point making it clear and crisp.

Now let’s take a look at how best to exploit SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SERVICES in marketing visuals.

1. 4. What text should you add?

The text builds up the context for your image so it is crucial to get it right. Here are some guidelines:

• • Incorporate quotes as they “get a 19% boost in Re-tweets (Source: Twitter).”
• • Use (no more than 1-2) hashtags because “Tweets with hashtags see as much as a 21% increase in engagement”, according to Twitter’s data team.
• • Use eye-opening and eye-catching statistics.
• • Engage the reader by asking questions. Use trigger words like ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘tell us.

1. 5. Can I add photos?

Yes but, keep in mind:

• • Don’t add stock photos without creative tinkering using editing software.
• • Try to get the public involved using their photo submissions. This gives a humanistic appeal to your photos.
• • Create images according to sizes recommended by each social media site e.g. Twitter recommends you use images of size 880 x 440, aspect ratio 2:1 for post images.

Advertising on the social media front is far more complicated than the days when marketers tried to make the BEST BROCHURES DESIGNS. Tame your visual designing horses according to the trends in vogue.